In conjunction with itelligence’s “What If” campaign and the publication of our new white paper, entitled “Run Better: Technology That Will Drive Tomorrow’s Transformation,” we’re posting a series of excerpts covering four featured technologies: Cloud Computing, Business Intelligence, Big Data/In-Memory and Mobility. The purpose of this white paper is to call attention to emerging enterprise technologies that are drastically changing the ways business operate to help them Run Better. Unlike many promising technologies of the past, these technologies are affordable and available to companies of any size, and in every industry. As a result, businesses have unprecedented opportunity to compete on a more equal footing—locally and globally.

As always, we look forward to your feedback and discussions of how we all can help our customers find the best ways to run better.

Business Intelligence/Analytics – The Issue: Translating Information Into InsightSuccessful businesses thrive on intelligent, data-driven decisions, but many businesses lack the tools to translate the information they gather into actionable insight. Over time, individual departments can lose sight of how their day-to-day activity and responsibilities align with enterprise goals and strategies. Instead, they focus on limited data sets with no view of how their efforts affect other areas of the business—leading to the operational silos that hamper intra-enterprise collaboration. As a result, business leaders often find it difficult to coordinate activity across departments and synchronize effort and resources to meet strategic goals.

In many cases, businesses already have the data they need, but it is locked in multiple disparate systems, which in turn creates a delay in identifying issues that need immediate attention. Critical reports that integrate this information aren’t generated until end of month or end of quarter. To access the information they need, line-of-business leaders and executives are dependent on IT to perform the needed queries and generate reports. Business users can’t drill down or slice and dice data sets to meet their analytical needs. It becomes near impossible to isolate key trends and insights by channel, business unit, department, location, product, supplier, and timeframe.

The Run Better Solution: Business Intelligence That Empowers Data-Driven Decisions
Business intelligence solutions draw mission-critical data from an enterprise’s multiple transactional and operational systems—as well as key sources outside the business—to generate new insight into how a business runs and how it can run more effectively. BI creates a single version of the truth that helps different departments and leaders within a business access the same information and see how their efforts align with the enterprise’s strategic direction. With consensus on priorities, businesses can better focus on the strategic initiatives that drive market differentiation and competitive advantage.

Decision makers across the organization can access the latest data on transactions, orders, supply chain activity, and markets, and make adjustments in real time to optimize performance and investment. And they can make these adjustments without the continual support of IT and without adding to a reporting backlog. BI solutions empower business users with analytical tools that they can actually use each day to generate new insights and perspectives. The enterprise’s decision makers can zero in on the precise information they need and tailor their analyses to better isolate the information that leads to key insights on activity, transactions, and products.

The itelligence Perspective:
Going Beyond Reporting For Sharper Insight Into Trends And Performance
BI solutions are more than reporting tools. To realize the full value of BI, businesses need to look beyond the implementation to the way the solution fits with key business processes. The full spectrum of users—from the executive team to line-of-business-managers—needs a solution that’s relevant to their day-to-day responsibilities. itelligence offers the unique combination of technical expertise and business savvy that translates into a BI solution tuned to the needs and responsibilities of users, resulting in a dramatically higher adoption rate and a better return on investment.